While working in Haiti, California-based inventor Shawn Frayne discovered an efficient and less expensive alternative to wind turbines for harnessing natural wind power.  His trademarked Windbelt technology recently won a prestigious 2007 Breakthrough award from Popular Mechanics.  

According to a video clip detailing how the technology works, a small wind generator can be constructed for between two and five dollars, and Windbelt technology is ten times more efficient than wind turbines.

The technology is based on aero-elastic flutter.  In the video, Frayne said the Windbelt works like a violin bow.  When wind blows across its surface, it flutters.  The fluttering motion works like a lever pushing a button magnet–and you really have to see the video to get the full idea of how this works.    

There are no spinning turbines with expensive bearings; only a strip of an ordinary mylar-coated fabric often used for making kites.   Frayne said a small Windbelt generator could be built for two to five dollars.  I suppose it’s possible that his company, Humdinger Wind Energy, LLC could be among the first to market microwind generator options.

Frayne also mentions that the Windbelt could provide a different way of looking at large wind-powered generators.  Who wouldn’t, if wind power could be produced ten times cheaper than it is now? 

And that makes me wonder how it could be used here in North Dakota.  When local North Dakota people and communities are already beginning to band together to form their own community-owned wind farms (see previous post here), it makes sense that a good, inexpensive technology like this one will enable other North Dakota communities to do the same.

Again, because it’s really worth the view, the video.